Archive for May 2012

Earlier this month in Greece, the Olympic flame began its ceremonial journey to the site of the Summer Games in London. The flame is being carried in a relay by some 8,000 torchbearers to spread the message of peace, unity, and friendship over 70 days until it arrives at the opening ceremonies on July 27. -- Lloyd Young -- Editor's note: We'll be posting additional Olympic themed galleries leading up to and throughout the games. (29 photos total)

Nadine Struijk of The Netherlands, carrying the Olympic flame during the torch relay through Brynmawr, Wales, on May 25. Struijk was in the Dutch national synchronized swimming team for many years and now coaches the junior Dutch team, but gets her moment to shine here in the torch relay running up to the London Olympic Games. (Gareth Fuller/Locog via Associated Press)

Getty Images photographer, Mario Tama, spent time in and around Owsley County, Kentucky documenting the life and times of some of it's 5,000 residents. The 2010 U.S. Census listed Owsley County as having the lowest median household income in the country outside of Puerto Rico, with 41.5% of residents living below the poverty line. Familial and community bonds run deep, with a populace that shares a collective historical and cultural legacy uncommon in most parts of the country. The community struggles with a lack of jobs due to the decline in coal, tobacco and lumber industries. It's just a glimpse into their lives, but one we wanted to share. -- Paula Nelson (EDITOR'S NOTE: We will not post on Memorial Day, May 28, 2012.) (46 photos total)

Craig and Cora Adams, married nine years, outside their trailer in Owsley County, April 20, 2012, in Booneville, Kentucky. Daniel Boone once camped in the Appalachian mountain hamlet of Owsley County which remains mostly populated by descendants of settlers to this day. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The city of Joplin, Mo., on Tuesday marked a year since a tornado struck, killing 161 people and destroying a third of city. Many people marched during a “Day of Unity’’ through the city’s hardest hit areas. The tornado destroyed or damaged thousands of structures, including the high school and St. John's Regional Medical Center, both of which are being rebuilt. The storm is reported to have caused some $2.8 billion in damage. -- Lloyd Young (25 photos total)

Sarah Mcconnell-Pinjuv prays during a service in front of an iron cross that is all that remains of St. Mary's church after it was destroyed by the tornado one year ago on May 22, 2011 in Joplin, Mo. The EF-5 tornado devastated the leaving behind a path of destruction along with 161 deaths and hundreds of injuries, but one year later there are signs that the town is beginning to recover. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

A rare annular eclipse - a ring of sunlight as the new moon, passing between Earth and sun, blocks most, but not all, of the sun's disc. It is striking to see. Differing from a total solar eclipse, the moon in an annular eclipse appears too small to cover the sun completely, leaving a ring of fire effect around the moon. The eclipse cast its shallow path crossing the West from west Texas to Oregon then arcing across the northern Pacific Ocean to Tokyo, Japan. (Thanks to all Big Picture viewers for sending us your images of the eclipse.) -- Paula Nelson (49 photos total)

A partial solar eclipse as seen during sunrise in the coastal town of Gumaca, Quezon province, southeast of Manila, May 21, 2012. Thousands turned their eyes to the sky on both sides of the Pacific to gaze excitedly as an eclipse occluded the sun at dawn in Asia and at dusk in the western United States. An annular eclipse occurs when the moon passes in front of the sun, but is too far from the Earth to block it out completely, leaving a "ring of fire" visible. (Ted Aljibeted Aljibe/AFP/GettyImages)

Thousands of images are supplied by multiple wire services to newspapers across the country each day. Many of those images depict ordinary scenes of life in different countries around the world. There are three picture editors that contribute to the Big Picture blog, each of them seeing the world in a little bit of a different way. Their backgrounds, their experiences, their interests - all very disparate. Each of them given the same resources (the visual wire) to edit from, each choosing very different ways to tell a story. The following photographs are my choices of those images for the month of May (and a few from late April) illustrating daily life around the world. -- Paula Nelson (53 photos total)

Adam Ortiz, a fourth-grader at Fairview Elementary, stops traffic while classmates and parents cross Washington at North 11th Street in Klamath Falls, Ore. as part of Walk to School Days, something the school has participated in every Friday in May for three years, May 11. 2012. (Andrew Mariman/The Herald and News)

It's something often ignored unless it's annoying, harnessed for sport or energy, the cause of great damage, or sometimes used for fun. Wind is simply defined as "a natural movement of air of any velocity." Here is a collection of images showing its effects on us and nature. -- Lloyd Young(40 photos total)

A woman grips her umbrella against the wind in front of the Jubelpark - Cinquantenaire in Brussels as a storm moved over Belgium on Jan. 5. The Belgian Royal Meteorological Institute gave a code orange warning for the heavy storm weather that moved over Belgium this morning. (Benoit Doppagne/AFP/Getty Images)

A potentially catastrophic food crisis in the Sahel region of West and Central Africa could affect as many as one million children. The food and nutrition crisis resulting from a severe drought, threatens the survival of an entire generation of children. Those children in eight countries - Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, Cameroon, Nigeria and Senegal - are at risk of severe acute malnutrition. Sparse rainfall, poor harvests and rising food prices have left many vulnerable and weak, seeking medical attention. Sahel is one of the poorest regions in the world where children already face daunting odds of survival. The current crisis makes their survival even more tenuous. Associated Press photographer, Ben Curtis, documented the conditions in the region. -- Paula Nelson (EDITORS NOTE: We will not be posting Monday, May 14) (32 photos total)

A woman carries her child amidst dusty winds in the desert near Mondo, a village in the Sahel belt of Chad, April 19, 2012. UNICEF estimates that 127,000 children under the age of 5 in Chad's Sahel belt will require lifesaving treatment for severe acute malnutrition this year, with an estimated 1 million expected throughout the wider Sahel region of West and Central Africa in the countries of Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Senegal and Mauritania. (Ben Curtis/Associated Press)

Russia and former Soviet republics marked the 67 years since the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in World War II today. Russia's newly inaugurated President Vladimir Putin promised a strong Russia during a speech he delivered during a military parade at Red Square in Moscow. The Soviet Union lost an estimated 26 million people in the war, including 8.5 million soldiers. -- Lloyd Young (31 photos total)

A World War II veteran walks at the Red Square in Moscow, on May 9, 2012, after the Victory Day parade. Thousands of Russian soldiers marched today across Red Square to mark the 67 years since the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence/AFP/Getty Images)

The night sky on May 5 was animated by the once-a-year cosmic event of the perigee moon. Popularly known as the "Supermoon", the moon appears much larger above us when the elliptical orbit brings it within 221,802 miles to Earth, the closest point. The effect is magnified during a full moon, when we see our nearest celestial neighbor appear roughly 20 percent brighter and 15 percent larger. Collected here are images taken just before, during, and just after the perigee moon of 2012. -- Lane Turner (27 photos total)

With well over a year before American forces pull out of Afghanistan, the conflict there drags on. Every month in The Big Picture, we feature a selection of recent images of events there, from the soldiers and insurgents at war, the people longing for peace, and daily life and culture in the country of 29 million. Afghanistan remains among the world's poorest nations, and struggles with issues not found in other places, like an ongoing fight against polio. Afghanistan still supplies about 90% of the world's opium, a major cash crop in a country with few viable exports. Gathered here are images from April, 2012. -- Lane Turner (33 photos total)

Afghan policemen are mirrored in glass from a broken window as they stand guard outside the building where Taliban fighters launched an attack in Kabul on April 16, 2012. A total of 36 Taliban militants were killed as they mounted a wave of attacks across Afghanistan. (Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images)

May Day was marked once again around the globe with political protests and demonstrations by organized labor. The Occupy Wall Street movement, which formed last year in New York, used the day to spread its message of social and economic inequality. Also known as International Workers Day, May 1 is marked in different ways around the world, and in many countries May Day is observed as a national holiday. This celebration of the international labor movement stemmed from a deadly 1886 labor demonstration in Chicago calling for an eight-hour workday. -- Lloyd Young(39 photos total)

An Occupy demonstrator confronts a police officer during a rally in the streets as part of a nationwide May Day protest in Oakland, Calif. on May 1. (Jana Asenbrennerova/Reuters)